In this Q&A, ASBMB Today science writer Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay talks about her career path. In high school, she says, "I knew I wanted to be able to support myself financially as an adult. Through movies and books, it appeared to me that writers lived in garrets with only candlelight for warmth, and scientists appeared to be a better-fed lot." But once she found herself alone in the lab, she says, "Much to my alarm, I discovered that experimental design wasn’t intuitive for me. I lacked the instinct and the manual dexterity for experiments. I also lacked the patience needed for research. It was painful to learn there was no such thing as instant gratification in science."

Where Dave R. Wilson, the newest member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Minority Affairs Committee, grew up in rural New Mexico, opportunities for upward mobility – and, well, even neighbors – were few and far between. Nestled in the Navajo Nation Reservation not too far from the Four Corners, his hometown had only four houses, and his school was an 18-mile bus ride away.